Blood and Profit: Chapter 36

Mew watched as Toll and Rusty piloted their stolen cruiser into the active slip ring. “Come back here you rat bastard!” She yelled futility at the thick pane of clear plasteel. The electric blue energy of the ring dissipated as she hammered her fist into the wall cursing his name. She could feel her hand going numb and stopped punching the wall because the pain was pushing the black walls of fury out of her vision. She rubbed her knuckles of her throbbing hand and felt the warmth of fresh blood. Her gaze dropped to her hand. “That immature asshole isn’t worth breaking your own hand.” She chastised herself. When she looked back through the clear plasteel window again she thought she had lost her mind.

The energy of the ring had dissipated and yet emerging from the ring like a cheap magic trick on a grand scale were what she could only describe as giant tree leaves. Each leaf must have been the size of a star fighter. He jaw dropped in shock and she rubbed her eyes with her wounded hand, then checked the window again. The number of leaves had grown beyond a number easily counted, they resembled a cloud more than any tactical formation, and they were still emerging from the powered down ring. She watched as the ever growing cloud headed for the planet.

She completely missed the leaf that broke off and headed straight for her space station, and was shocked when the station’s proximity alerts went off. She reached for the tablet in her jacket pocket but was thrown to the floor when the leaf crashed hard into the side of the station. She sat up to see the ceiling lights flickering and watch as the metal of the station wall was forced inward by what looked to much like sentient branches and vines for her to assume it was anything else. When the hole was big enough a humanoid tree figure appeared. Leaning with one bark covered hand gripping the destroyed wall of the station, the other holding the right side of its tree like chest area.

“Please…” The figure gasped, attempted to take a step forward into the hallway, stumbled to its knees and caught itself with its free hand before it face planted into the floor. “I am Rootan of the Galacticseeds. We need, I need, your help.” He tried to stand up right while on his knees, grunted, doubled over in pain and passed out.

She saw the wound in his chest begin to seep freely between his loosened fingers. The station’s sensors were screaming about the hull breach but she barely even heard the sirens and the computerized voice didn’t even register in her mind. She was running down the hall looking for the nearest emergency med kit. She reached the closest one and found it completely empty, she tossed it violently down the hall and raced to the location of the next one. She didn’t know what this race was, which didn’t really matter at this point she figured as she reached the second emergency med kit and knew it was full just grabbing it off the wall. As she ran down the hallway she realized she didn’t know how they could use the Slip Gate when it wasn’t even on. As she knelt at the side of the bloody unconscious tree person and rushed to stop the sap like blood from rushing out of the deep gash in the bark that went deep enough to reveal the exposed ivory colored muscle fiber beneath his this protective skin, all she knew was that from here on out her life would never be the same, and she would never forgive Toll and Rusty.

Lidarion: Chapter 8

Trent spent most of the next month in Saintcitia. Days after he arrived he wandered the hospital like a living corpse, he had lost all sense of time. He slept when his body could no longer stay awake and he ate when someone brought him food and made sure that he ate it. He felt hollowed out and lost and the only other person he wanted to talk to was in her own private misery, mourning her lost husband, He had tried once to see her but her room was attended by a nun who politely but sternly turned him away. He had no way of knowing how long he had been in the hospital when during one of the meals politely forced on him by a nun a beam of sunlight came through a nearby high walled window and caught him. It wasn’t long after that meal that he wandered outside for the first time. He felt the sun on his skin, its heat beginning to iron out some of the surface level weariness in his face. He walked around the city until the sun went down. He was up with the sun the next day and every day after that, and the day after that. 

After the first three days he began to talk to people, he walked less and socialized more. In a city full of healers and mystics he found that there were many opportunities for someone more physical in stature to help out. Word spread quickly of the ex-soldier with a desire to work. The men and women he helped were grateful for the assistance, he was grateful for the escape.

He had finished his fourth day of working in the basement of the Saintcitia Research Library. The ancient old man who had been managing the library had long ago lost the ability to get up and down the stairs safely and moving scrolls and books was low on the importance list in a city full of wounded and dying patients. He had lost count of the crates he had moved but the main room of the basement was easily fifty feet on a side and it was filled wall to wall. The sun had set hours ago and his arms and back were sore with the days of labor behind him. The nuns in the hospital seemed perfectly content to let him use the room he had woken up in the day after he arrived in town. They had never asked him for anything, or inquired as to when he might be leaving. Which was awfully lucky for him because he had no clue where he was going to go or what he was going to do with himself now that the war was over.

He had every intention of taking a hot bath and then passing out for as long as his body would let him, his plans changed when he saw Lisa standing at his door. She had the sword strapped to her back and she had a look of determination.

He stopped a few feet away from her, still unsure of how to say what he felt he needed to say. His mouth opened and closed a few times, aborting sentences he couldn’t even formulate.

She nodded at him silently. “We need your help.” She spoke softly but with finality. She wasn’t asking.

He felt the swell of purpose rising up in his chest. “Anything.” He confirmed.

“Accompany me to Lidarion, All our things are there. We were planning on living in the capital after the war ended. I can’t see myself there without him. I will be returning to my family’s home in Dockland City.” She explained.

The second he heard her speak of the capitol he looked like might throw up. “Anything but that.” He forced the words out of his mouth.

The determination in her eyes vaporized and she looked like she might blow apart in a slight breeze. “I can’t go alone Trent…please.” She asked the final time.

His shoulders slumped and nodded slowly. “When do you want to leave?” He asked.

The XP: Chapter 8

Blackout is alone, standing just outside the entrance to the Titian’s Fury dungeon. He has a pair of black goggles on and is furiously operating a remote control. The googles keep him from noticing at Stygian walks up and stands beside him.

Stygian watches Blackout gyrate with the controller for a moment before he spoke. “ You do realize it’s Christmas morning?” He asked.

“Of course I did, this is only going to be possible until the GM’s find out and hotfix it.” Blackout explained.

Stygian looked at the entrance to the dungeon. “Fix what?” He asked.

“Oh!” Blackout shouted suddenly. “Damn, that was close. Are the others here yet?” He asked, gripping the control tighter.

Bob appears on the other side of blackout. “We’re just waiting on Trart.” She replied.

Blackout grimaces as he toggles the controls furiously. “He better hurry up.”

As if summoned directly Trart faded into the game with a yawn. “Merry Christmas ass faces. Waking me up at the butt crack of dawn? It truly is a Christmas miracle.”

Blackout smiles. “And a Merry Christmas to you to Noob.” Trart flipped Blackout off. “Stop flipping me off Trart.” Trart was shocked and waved his hand in front of Blackouts solid black goggles.

Bob slapped Trart’s hand away. “So not that I am against spending time with you guys, but what is this all about?” She asked.

“I got my in game presents about an hour ago.” Blackout started to explain.

Trart perked up. “There are in game presents?” He asked.

Blackout nodded. “Oh yeah, This year one of them happens to be a remote control car. Which carries 100% permanent agro.” He explained.

Bob immediately put it together. “Programming error?” She asked.

Blackout nodded. “Indestructible, pulls and holds agro and has no usage time limit, yeah most likely a programming error. But their mistake it our Christmas miracle.” He finished.

“How does the car holding agro help us? It doesn’t have any ability to do damage does it?” Trart asked.

Blackouts smile went from ear to ear. “Nope, but the Winter Man Detector landmines do.”

Stygian looked at the dungeon door again. “How many did you put in there?” He asked.

“Just over a thousand” Blackout replied.

Trart shook his head. “Ok so you can blow up the first few trash mobs, big deal.”

Bob shook her head. “He drove the car through the entire dungeon, agro’d everything including the Titan King, and is leading them back to the front entrance room.”

Trart’s eyes got huge. “Oh,” His mental math for the value of the loot drops totaled and he got the same smile that Blackout had. “Please tell me we get to keep the loot.”

Blackout pulls his goggles off as the sound of one thousand landmines going off behind the dungeon door serenades their good fortune. “We get to keep the loot.” He replied as he lowered the antenna on his controller. “Merry Christmas everyone.” He greeted his friends as the explosions were only just beginning.

University of Console Heroics: Chapter 8

Almost everyone in Cynthia’s Intro to Energy class was eagerly gathering their things together now that she had dismissed them. In fact everyone except for Foster had moved like there was money on the line because it was Thursday and Friday classes didn’t exist for underclassmen.

Foster looked stuck in something resembling a painfully stiff meditation pose. His eyes were shut so tight she was worried even that was hurting him. He was breathing like a machine. Counting a robotic three seconds and then forcing his body to inhale or exhale for exactly three seconds. By the time it was just the two of them in the room she was genuinely surprised he had not passed out. She walked over to where he was sitting, her movement broke his concentration and he skipped from breathing in to breathing out.

“You should take a break.” She said as she sat down.

Foster opened his eyes and rubbed his temples. “Midterms are next week. I am too far behind to take a break.”

She shook her head in disagreement. “Not really.” She replied.

Foster looked doubtful. “Five weeks Cynthia, I’m the only student in class that hasn’t started to produce some form of energy.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Foster, RELAX. You are the most determined student I’ve seen in any of my classes this semester. You just need to find a way to calm the hell down and let your body do what it wants to do. You can’t brute force your way to mental and physical balance.”

Foster leaned back and used his arms to hold himself up as he stretched his neck muscles. “I can feel myself falling behind.”

Cynthia joined him in stretching out. “You know this class isn’t about producing an energy 

signature. All this pressure is coming from yourself, you’re not failing by any metric but if you’re not careful you’re going to burn out before the end of your first year.”

Forster frowned. “Thanks for the pep talk, teach.” He grumbled.

She smiled. “This is a pep talk, this is the first semester of your first year. You can love Combat Studies without majoring in it, perhaps there’s a different major that’s a better fit for you?” She suggested.

He looked dismayed. “How the hell did we get from ‘you’re not failing’ all the way to ‘maybe you should quit?’” He asked.

She shook her head. “I didn’t say you should quit, I said it might be in your best interest to find something you can be as successful in as you would like to be.” She explained.

Foster Shot up in anxious frustration and started to pace. “ I WANT to be successful at this. This is all I have ever wanted.” He said.

Cynthia stared deeply into the carpet beneath her as Foster paced back and forth. She wavered for a moment but suddenly blurted out “Talk to Dean.”

Foster stopped walking and looked confused. “What? Why?” He asked.

Her gaze didn’t leave the carpet. “We had this class together as freshman. He had a harder time learning to meditate than even you. He could barely sit still most of the semester. Then one day, he burned.” She explained.

“Burned?” Foster asked.

Cynthia nodded. “He couldn’t meditate to save his life, still can’t as far as I know. But his energy was fire incarnate. He figured something out, something that might be able to help you.” She offered.

Foster looked cautiously intrigued. “So then why would he switch to Adventure Studies?” He asked.

She finally looked up from the floor and shrugged her shoulders. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Foster couldn’t contain his eagerness, he grabbed his shoes and his bag and left Cynthia in the classroom alone with her thoughts.

Shades of Justice: Chapter 12

The Shades and Centurion charged at Hex Decimal. Kelly’s Black Lightsabers cut cleanly through him at the waist. The severed melting cables popped and fizzed as Hexa Laughed.

“Is that the best you can do?” He asked. “More like Shades of Disappointment!” He jeered as the cables of his stomach began to reconnect.

Dante caught Hexa with a huge golf swing of the Tsunami Hammer, sending his upper body flying through the air and instantly snapping the cables that were in the process of healing his midsection. Warren snagged his wrists with his vine whips and Hexa’s upper body down hard and fast into the wreckage of a flaming car.

Almost instantly Hexa began to rise out of the wreckage. The writhing mass of cables growing larger by the second.

Everyone’s shoulders slumped as Hexa continued to increase in size. “Throw me.” Gordon demanded of Centurion.

Centurion looked surprised. “what? Why? Just call your mecha and finish the fight.” He replied.

Gordon waved to the chaotic mess of the freeway and the nearby military base housing. “And destroy this entire area and most of the people in it?” He asked.

Centurion gave a quick glance and admitted this would be one of the worst places to make this a full size fight. He then looked back at Gordon. “All right then, how am throwing you?” He asked and 

Hexa grabbed the nearest car and threw it at the Shades who scrambled for cover.

Safely behind a pile of wrecked cars Gordon willed the fingers of his invisible gauntlets to become impossibly sharp claws, that were very nearly spears when they stopped forming. “I’m gonna ri-“

“I got the idea” Centurion interrupted him. He turned to the other shades. “Keep him distracted while I get us in the air.” He commanded.

The other Shades ran back to engage Hexa while Centurion grabbed Gordon and engaged his flight engines, lifting them into the sky.

The other Shades gave it their all but as Hexa grew it was light ants fighting a dog. Then with Hexa fully distracted. Centurion launched Gordon like a bolt of lightning straight at Hexa’s chest. Gordon had his arms outstretched and his clawed hands open ready to grab and rip apart the cursed router. 

Hexa saw him coming out of the corner of his eye but in reflexively turning to block him he only exposed his chest to Gordon, who shot into him like a human bullet.

For a moment nothing happened. Then Hexa’s face flashed a rainbow of colors before blinking on and off a few times. He looked terrified. “No! I haven’t had my revenge! NOOOOOO!” Hexa screamed until his voice devolved from Dolby 5.1, to a midi sample, to 16 bit, finally descending into 8 bit tones before it was silent. His gigantic upper body held its shape for a few more seconds until his magic lost cohesion and everything began to shrink back to its normal inactive size.

The other shades ran over to the pile of lifeless cords to find Gordon grasping two halves of a now powerless and shattered router. Centurion landed next to Warren. “So you guys are the new team then?” He asked.

The Shades all turned to glare at him. “When is everyone going to stop asking that?” Kelly asked.

Centurion laughed. “It’ll pass soon enough. The first fights are always the roughest. You’ll get yourselves figured out.” There were sirens in the distance. “But for now, take off, the federal recover team isn’t far off.” He warned. The shades nodded and teleported back to Lumarion’s base. Once they were gone Centurion checked his com unit. “Centurion to K.E.M.T.R.A.L, come in K.E.M.T.R.A.L”

“We work for K.E.M.T.R.A.L Centurion, I actually have a name, and it wouldn’t kill you to use it.” A woman’s voice filled his helmet. He smiled.

“Oh come on Lucy, aren’t their protocols and regulations to be followed, we can’t be calling each other by our first names over the air like this, it’s practically flirting.” He teased.

“Oh, sure it is, and flying in a plane practically makes me a bird.” She said sarcastically.

“Would it kill you to be the Money Penny to my James Bond?” He said trying not to laugh.

“I thought I was.” She said, turning on her own charm.

“Oh you tease.” He chided her.

“Oh you wish.” She replied back all business again. “Command is requesting you for debrief, recovery and containment teams are in route. Job well done, return to base.”

“Rodger that K.H.E.M.T.R.AL” He smiled as he heard her growling over the intercom. “Returning to base.” He said as he took to the sky.

Catastrophic Personality Adjustment Counseling: The End

Even the heavy brown and green curtains cannot keep all the sunlight out of the office. He has a huge smile on his face and it refuses to be subdued.

The counselor cannot help but smile back. “Session twenty one. You seem to be in a fantastic mood.” She said rhetorically.

He nodded. “ I almost got the crap kicked out of me today.” He explained.

The counselor was confused. “That doesn’t sound promising.” She pointed out.

He shook his head. “I’m not that worried about it. You know what I love?” He asked out of the blue.

She shook her head. “Enlighten me.” She replied.

He looked like a kid on Christmas morning. “I love coffee. More specifically I love the epic poems masquerading as caffeine delivery systems. Double Ristretto Venti Half-Soy Decaf organic chocolate brownie iced Vanilla double-shot gingerbread Frappuccino extra hot with foam whipped cream upside down double blended. It’s like a dancing with your mouth.” He gushed.

“Ok, start from the beginning.” She laughed.

He looked confused. “The beginning of what?” He asked, then realized that he didn’t sound like he was making much in the way of sense. “Oh, my obsession with coffee? I guess it all starts with this place I found that was willing to serve me.” He explained. “It’s this chain place that looks way fancier than it actually is and I know now that they burn their beans which is great for me but most humans have more detailed taste profile…” he trailed off for a second.

“Most?” She asked, landing on the right word.

He nodded. “I was, uh” He cleared his throat. “Almost a week ago I was sitting at this place. Reading “For the Win” by Cory Doctorow.” This group of good old boys came into the store and placed their orders. Their leader bumped into my table while the others were harassing the baristas. The book had me feeling braver than I should have so when he tried to sit on my table I made my presence known.” He explained. “The guy turned around and got in my face. ‘You say something corpse?” He growled at me. I nodded and held my ground ‘yeah’ I said trying to sound braver than I felt. ‘ I said excuse me. See you spilled my drink and while you appear to be in dire need of a shower and a breath mint I feel that it is common courtesy for you to apologize when you spill another person’s drink.’ He got real close in and I could smell the beer on his breath. ‘Well then I’m in luck, ‘cause you ain’t no person. Now, why don’t you get up, and get the hell out of here before we take you apart like a Lego set.’ I wanted to fight him, I wanted to fight all of them. But I could see the other patrons in my peripheral vision trying to hide behind books, newspapers, and laptop screens…so I chickened out. I stood up. Looked down at my feet and gave up. ‘Frankie go now, sorry make mess, me bad.’ I mumble as they laugh at me. The leader keeps talking as I leave ‘So gawt damn tired of these Obamanation’s thinking the own every gawt damn place’ I hear before the door closes.” He hasn’t looked up from his feet the entire time. After a moment he holds out his empty hand. “In the box of my belongings from my old life, I had an MP3 player. On the Back there’s this quote. ‘If you have to crawl to live, stand, and die.’ When I betray myself in moments like that I can feel that little player like a judgmental weight in my pocket.” He wipes tears from his eyes.

The counselor was still confused. “How did this end up with you in such a good mood?” she asked.

He finally looked up, “Oh! After I left I ran into this couple who were walking by the coffee shop. I’m pretty sure they heard the guy before the door closed. The guy asked me about my book and we got to talking. They invited me to their coffee shop. A place a few blocks up the road from here. I’ve gone there every day since. They know my name. The owner is a human but her daughter died of lung cancer a few years back and she came back to life. She didn’t care about the social rules or the fact that her daughter no longer remembered her. She refused to let her go. Her daughter got into politics in her afterlife and has been running meetings for a group called Stronger than Death.”

The counselor stifled a giggle.

He smiled “I know it’s S.T.D. but it’s a support and political action group continuing the fight for afterlife rights. They know me there, I’ve bought my roommate by…I’ve finally found a place where I feel like I belong, where I feel I can make a difference.” He explained.

The counselor nodded. “Enjoy that feeling. In fact. If you ever take any of the advice I’ve given you let it be what I am about to say. Happiness is the best revenge. Be happy and pass that happiness on to others.”  She smiled at him

He nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He said, standing up and heading for the door. “See you next week?” He asked. She nodded.

The Counselor is nervously tapping her pen on the heel of her shoe.  He hasn’t shown up yet and considering the state of the nation she wasn’t really that surprised. She checked her watch and saw that he was almost fifteen minutes late. She got out of her chair and began to pace. He wasn’t breaking a law by not showing up, none of them were, she reminded herself. In fact, she realizes and stops pacing. It’s not that had stopped coming that worried her. Hell they were allowed to stop coming as soon as they wanted, it was the fact that if they stopped coming today and there was a better than even chance that they were out on the streets, protesting.

The knock on the door startled her and she stopped pacing. She hadn’t even realized she had started pacing again. “Come in.” She said, trying to keep an even tone.

It was him. He looked torn up, like he has swallowed fire and it was burning him up inside. Without saying anything he shut the door and sat on the couch. She quickly sat in her chair. She didn’t know if he didn’t want to look at her, or couldn’t look at her. He stared at his shoes. “I wanted to believe.” He started.

The tension she felt before had disappeared, she knew it was on the other side of the office door, just 

waiting for her, but she’d worry about that when she had to.

He sighed the way a person does when their trying not cry. “I wanted to believe that I was part of this, great force. A great force of positive change.” Tears left dark circles on his jeans. “That along with my fellow un-dead brothers and sisters I was helping to push towards a new time, a better time, where we could live in peace with the rest of mankind.”

It wasn’t the first time in her career she felt like she needed to say something but didn’t have the first clue of what that something was, so she did the next best thing. She waited, as patiently as she could.

He wiped tears from his eyes. “But this election...” He trailed off. “All I wanted, was to shed the image of monstrosity that humanity had created for us.” He looked up finally “They dismembered my roommate three days ago. Tore him limb from limb with their trucks. See we don’t die by hanging, so they found a more, entertaining way to get the job done.” He looked back down at his feet for a long time.

She looked down at her notes and saw that they had been smeared by her own tears. “The laws haven’t changed yet, there is still time –“

“Public opinion has already changed, and truthfully I wonder if it was ever as progressive as we were led to believe.” He interrupted.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket, another news alert most likely. The last seventy two hours had brought unimaginably horrible violence. Fights at pro and anti-Zombie protests, both sides blaming the other for starting it. She had unplugged her television when she realized that in the first day she couldn’t find a channel that was talking about the losses of zombie life, only the so called ‘human’ injury toll, but the cameras could not avoid the scattered piles of dismembered and burning body parts. Then Afterlife Heights a low income housing district had been walled off with trucks and firebombed, the ones that were able to escape the fires were met with shotgun blasts from the high ground of truck beds.

After that it descended into nationwide chaos.        

“You know there’s isn’t a single zombie movie or book where the zombies are sentient and have good reason to hate humanity?” He snorted a halfhearted laugh. “The best part is, the One Life Party was successful in keeping “Zombie” as a race option off the US census, so even the best guesses of our actual numbers are most likely catastrophically low.”

She nodded and dropped her notes in the tiny trashcan next to her desk. The fact that they were on the third floor did nothing to mute the chaos in the streets below.

“I used to think we could all just be people. But in the last week I’ve learned one unavoidable fact about humanity.” He said listening to the crashing cars, the screams of terror. “There must always, be a monster.” Together, they watched the window light up a bright orange.

Lidarion: Chapter 7

Saintcitia was nearly two days from the contested Lidarion border. What had started as a single church not far off the Kings road had over generations become the spiritual and educational capitol of Lidarion. There were hospitals and libraries, shrines and monasteries, even the wild elves had planted a small sacred grove of trees and plants. The Priestess that had begun her hand built stone walled, one room church left behind no evidence of her reasoning, none of the other who arrived to help ever received and explanation, or passed it on if they did. The only thing anyone knew for certain about her flash of inspiration, was that she would not be the last to receive it.

Trent had seen Saintcitia on the horizon backlit bit the overeager rays of predawn light. By the time he had reached the city gates the sun was well into its trek across the sky. The guards at the gate had confiscated all his weapons leaving only Brandon after he explained the contents of the sheath. No one in this town was a stranger to death, but neither were they immune to the burdens of regret, loyalty, and heartbreak. The reverence the guards had while they directed him to the Saintcitia hospital was almost more than Trent bear.

He felt like he was moving in slow motion. The city flew around him as if he were a boulder in a busy river. He knew it was impossible, but the closer he got to the hospital where Lisa was working the heavier the sheath felt.

He had considered it for two days and still had no idea what he was going to say. The infinite echoes of his own mind blaming him got louder by the second. He barely heard the smiling nurse but followed down the hall in the direction she pointed. He could hear nothing now but the deafening howls of his own judgement.

She came out of a room into the hall, a smile on her face. He saw her lips move and knew what she was asking, they were frozen in the eternity that was the deepest silence he could not find the words to end. Her smile shattered like cheap glass. Her lip quivered, he saw her mouth the question again but she already knew the answer. He pulled the sheath off his back for a thousand lifetimes, she was sobbing on the floor. His vision began to blur. He knelt beside her and could feel himself apologizing over and over again. She took the sheath and wrapped herself around it. She sank to the floor wailing with full body sobs.